Wilson Bethel: NH actor breaks out
Cover story for Encore Section of July 28, 2011 edition of The Telegraph
The small-town boy may have finally made it big.
Wilson Bethel, a 27-year-old actor, grew up in the southwest New Hampshire towns of Hillsborough and Keene, living the typical New Hampshire childhood.
As he has grown older, though, Bethel has sought larger and larger goals, gunning for parts in movies and television shows and moving to Los Angeles in the process.
And while he has certainly struggled in his quest for movie-star greatness, he may have finally found his breakout role in “Hart of Dixie,” a television show premiering Sept. 26 on the CW network.
The show stars Rachel Bilson, of “The O.C” fame, and will feature Bethel as Wade Kinsella, a fisherman who will play Bilson’s love interest.
Before he started working in television, Bethel spent his youth in the hills and mountains of northern New Hampshire. And although his parents’ houses were in Hillsboro and Keene, Bethel felt most at home among the wildlife of the White Mountains.
Bethel spent his summers hiking and biking over the hilly terrain, and when the snow came and covered it up during the frosty winter, Bethel happily strapped on a snowboard and used it as his transportation of choice, gliding down mountains with his father in the freezing cold.
Even now, though Bethel is living in Los Angeles, he makes the pilgrimage back to his home state for at least one warm season and one cold season per year.
“When I go back, it’s something else,” Bethel said. “New Hampshire is just such a place of sanctuary; it’s this special, hallowed place for me.”
And while those rocky landscapes are one of Bethel’s passions, he developed another passion – for theater – when he was in second and third grades. At that age, Bethel was first exposed to theater through various school plays, and he felt a connection with it early on.
That led his mother to enroll him in The Well School, a private day school in Peterborough specializing in the arts.
“There were a lot of these really advanced theater classes there,” Bethel said. “And they would put on these fully staged Shakespeare plays for kids who are, like, 11 or 12 years old, and that was just slightly insane. I mean full-on productions.”
Although he felt it was a little crazy, Bethel still said the experience was a terrific way to really jump off the deep end and dive headfirst into the world of acting. But the experience also led to him leaving that world and ending up in San Francisco during high school. At that point, acting took a backseat to experiencing life, and acting didn’t look to be in Bethel’s future.
When he turned 18, though, Bethel’s passion for acting returned, and he was in the perfect spot to pick the craft back up: California.
So, Bethel headed to Los Angeles, a teenager with dreams but no clue how to reach them. And when he arrived, it was obvious that everyone there seemed to be like him, sort of lost and without a clue.
“In Los Angeles, there’s a sense of life like, ‘If I sit here long enough, someone will just drop a huge movie role into my lap,’ ” Bethel said.
And while the many aspiring actors around him took that approach, Bethel knew that if he wanted to succeed, he couldn’t just sit and wait. So Bethel took acting classes while he waited “probably over 65,000 tables” to help support himself.
“It’s really about how much time and how much energy you put into it,” Bethel said. “It was a couple of years before I even got my first job and then a couple years more before I didn’t have to spend time, you know, working as a tennis instructor or working at a children’s book company. It’s really about how much you want it.”
That persistence paid off, first in small roles on TV shows such as “The O.C.” and “NCIS,” and then in larger roles such as the character of Cpl. Evan “Q-Tip” Stafford in the HBO miniseries “Generational Kill” and as Ryder Callahan on the long-running soap opera “The Young and The Restless.”
Bethel said his experiences on the prime-time shows and miniseries were big steps for his career.
He wasn’t as outspoken about his soap-opera role, though, saying that while “it was definitely a learning experience,” the public stigma toward soap operas made him a little less excited to talk about the role.
“I don’t think I even told my parents about it until I’d even been doing it for a couple of months,” Bethel said.
“I was a little embarrassed, and I always seem to think that I’m better than I actually am. But I did learn a lot, and I had a lot of fun.”
And after more than six years of seemingly constant work that only sometimes related to acting, Bethel finally got the part – his role on “Hart of Dixie.”
Bethel said he was ecstatic about the role, but emphasized it didn’t come out of left field. Bethel has been working in Los Angeles for years and making connections, and he had the feeling that it was only a matter of time before an opportunity opened up.
But when he finally heard the news, Bethel couldn’t help but cheer.
“I celebrate by going on these really, really long bike rides,” Bethel said. “And on that day, I’m pretty sure I was disrupting traffic. I was singing some sort of victory song and had my hands over my head.”
And after going through so much over the last few years, Bethel could have easily given up, packed his bags and headed back to his Hillsborough home. But Bethel loves Los Angeles enough to stay there and has found ways to make it feel like New Hampshire, even though it’s on the other side of the country.
“I don’t see them as being at odds with each other, but really more like complements,” Bethel said. “I love it (in Los Angeles), and I’ve figured out ways to make it feel really comfortable and have it feel like home.
“I still am able to spend time outdoors and go biking and hiking, and that makes me happy in both places.”
